The Life and Times of Isabella Griffin
by IndigoPassion
Summary: Friends to make, lessons to learn, promises to keep, jokes to tell, hearts to break, hearts to mend, rumors to hear, tears to shed, sweets to eat, cards to collect, gifts to give and life to live. Isabella Griffin is eleven years old today; and she's still got her whole life ahead of her.


In every wizarding household there are two very important dates for each young witch or wizard. First there is their eleventh birthday; where they will receive their Hogwarts letter for the very first time. And secondly there is their seventeenth birthday; where they finally come of age and are granted the honour of performing magic outside of school in accordance with the statue of secrecy. We start this story on April 16th 1988. Isabella Griffins eleventh birthday.

April 16th 1988. Isabella Griffin lay spread out across her bed. She seemed about a head short for her age, and had a generally petite figure. She had long dark, near black, straight hair that, were she standing up, would have reached her waist. Her eyes were closed, but had they been open, they would be a beautiful mixture of blue, grey and green. She had inherited these eyes from her mother, Violet Griffin, while the rest of her features came straight from her father, Andrew Griffin. As she lay there, a younger boy entered the room. It was easy to see that this was the girls younger brother from the identical features starting with the short stature and dark hair, down to the colour of his eyes and the shapes and sizes of his facial features. The young boy carelessly rushed through the toys, clothes and stuffed animals on the floor to his sisters bed and threw himself beside the young girl.

"Bella," a voice called, interrupting my dreams. "Bella wake up!" I recognised the voice as belonging to my younger brother, Caden, but chose to ignore it and snuggled deeper into my covers mumbling something that even I couldn't have understood.

"Bella," Caden was persistent, as always. "Don't you remember what day it is?"

I tried to fight the fog in my mind and get my head around Caden's words. Did I know what day it was? I battled, half-heartedly, against the sleep bent on taking over my body once more. Maybe? No. Yes... Yes I knew EXACTLY what day it was!

"My birthday!" I screamed as I bolted upright in my bed.

Birthdays were a big thing in the Griffin household. Be it my birthday, my mums, or the owls. For their children's birthday, my parents would, of course, go all out. This year was special, and once Caden and I had rushed downstairs, we weren't at all surprised to see my parents already up.

"There's my birthday girl!" My father beamed at me, pulling out my chair at the dining table.

"Happy birthday, sweetie," my mum smiled as she bustled around the table, "I've made pancakes, Cad, set the table please honey."

"I want to open my presents!" I cried as I took my place at the table. My parents smiled at one another and shook their heads.

"After breakfast, Bella. We've got a special visitor for you today."

Caden gave a giggle and bounced on the balls of his feet. We all knew who the 'special' visitor would be. And just on que, the fireplace burst into emerald flames as a man stepped out.

"Smelled breakfast did you?" My father asked as my mum places the pancakes on the table.

"My favourite." Finn winked in reply.

Finn is my older brother. He finished Hogwarts a year ago and so would soon be turning twenty. I was only two when he started at the school, but he came home for every holiday, and once he started going to Hogsmead, we would occasionally join him there. In looks, Finn looked just like Caden and I. He had the same dark hair, same short stature and same eyes. Were a family of identical midgets, with only our mum looking apart from the rest of us. Although she is rather short too (none of us stood a chance in the hight department) she had light brown hair in perfect ringlets, thin lips as apposed to our full ones, high and defined cheekbones instead of our rounder faces and a slightly upturned nose while we had perfectly average ones. My mum really was a beautiful woman, and it was a shame that all she had passed along to her children were her eyes.

Those particular eyes were currently sweeping up and down my big brother in a rather critical fashion.

"Finn, you really need to trim your hair," she sighed, "give it a couple more weeks and people will start mistaking you for an sheepdog."

"Lay off it, Mum," he said, brushing away her comments with a wave of his hand (his free hand that is, as the other held a bag. Presents!) "This is how the cool kids look! Besides," he turned to face me, "how about a birthday surprise BEFORE breakfast?"

Finn knew the traditions in this household as well as any of us. Ignoring Mums disapproving glance at the idea of presents before we had eaten her lovingly made pancakes, Finn fished around the bag he was carrying. Grinning triumphantly he pulled his hand out and held up four rectangular pieces of paper.

"Tickets!"

Having been out of Hogwarts for a full year already, Finn had made rather a name for himself as the lead singer in a band made between himself and a few friends at school 'Pixie Dust'. When the boys had decided to try and make it large, Mum and Dad hadn't been instantly supportive. At the beginning they thought that Finn was just trying to avoid getting a 'real' job, but once they realised that the boys were serious, they provided him with their full support. The band wasn't international, but they had a rather large fan base in the british wizarding community. You could often hear them on the radio, and they played often at wizard festivals and 'gigs' around the country.

"A private function for a select few people, held tonight in the back garden," Finn grinned at me, "All songs dedicated to a very lucky young lady on a special day. Try not to miss it."

My parents smiled knowingly at each other and it was obvious that they had been in on the surprise.

"Right," mum said, clapping her hands together suddenly, "eat up kiddos. Sooner those plates are clean, then the sooner we can have a look at those presents!"

Ten minutes of pancake induced bliss later, Dad FINALLY eaten his fill, and we were all free to go into the sitting room. Caden and I literally leaped out of our seats and raced into the other room. Sat in the middle of the floor was great big pile of presents just waiting for me to dive in. The windows were all open, waiting to accommodate the owls that would soon be arriving with birthday greetings. Eleven really was a special birthday.

"Here," Caden said, handing me a large square package, "I brought it out of my own pocket money." He puffed his chest out proudly. I smiled back, touched. Caden was still only nine and this would have been the first time he had payed for a present with his own money.

The two of us sat on the floor and I instantly attacked the wrapping.

"Snitch Snatcher!" I cried, "Awh Cad, thanks!" I placed the board game on the floor and reached over to hug Caden. We were interrupted almost immediately though, with a screech from the window. Looking over, we saw a barn owl swooping through the living room. It didn't stop for even a second, dropping an envelope in my lap and leaving back through the window. I picked the envelope, taking in the red seal, the Hogwarts crest and the green writing.

'Miss Isabella Griffin,

The Living Room,

Griffin Estate'


End file.
